Blue Button Co-design Challenge Ideas Involved Patients in the Design
The Blue Button Initiative was launched in August 2010 in an effort to accelerate patient access to their health records for veterans. The button allows patients to securely download their personal health information to their computers, smart phones, thumb drives and more. The Blue Button has become synonymous with “easy access to your medical records”. The ONC activities around the Blue Button have included Challenges such as Blue Button for All Americans, the Blue Button Mash Up Challenge, and the Health Design Challenge. These range from PHR developers to get clinicians implementing the Blue Button, apps that make the best use of the Blue Button, and redesign of the visual layout of the medical record data. The Blue Button Co-design Challenge builds on these previous challenges to support consumer health and patient access to their data.
In the Blue Button Co-Design Challenge the ONC is challenging developers to create new priority patient applications able to receive data via Blue Button Plus. They recently engaged patients by crowdsourcing ideas and encouraging co-design. They invited patients and caregivers to share why they want access to their data, and what tools and applications they need to effectively use it. The winning ideas were announced.
Winning Idea
Hugo Campos (@HugoOC): “Brings together data from my medical device with my other health data. This would help people with other medical devices to identify and prevent potential triggers of cardiac arrhythmias and other critical events. It’s a tragedy when information exists that could have been used to prevent a problem, but extraordinary when it is used to improve outcomes. Such an app would give users of medical devices unprecedented access and insight into their health. Give us our data so we can take better care of ourselves and our families.”
Second Place Idea
Catherine Rose (@drcatherinerose): “Simplifies Care for Multiple Chronic Conditions. Manages my daughter’s chronic conditions, therapists, specialists, prescriptions and appointments. My daughter has defects in almost all organ systems and we see 18 different specialists, she has 6 different therapists, she has multitude of prescriptions and must-use medical equipment for breathing while she sleeps. We need a way to keep the hospital, her school team, her therapy team and us – all on the same page regarding her care. It takes heroic efforts now, but it could be greatly simplified!”
Third Place Idea
Nora Jean Levin (@wwwCFADorg) with “Will shorten the endless User Data Entry process to just one step and let me enter my own data on Drugs, Pharmacies and Preferred Providers.” This winning idea deals with a very specific problem for Medicare beneficiaries, and would require access and alteration to enterprise code that we are unfortunately not able to provide.
The Blue Button Co-design Challenge will now continue with these ideas and be used as the basis for the applications to be developed, co-designed at Health Tech Hatch, and reviewed for the challenge prizes. Total prize money for this challenge is $50K. Application submission is August 5th.